Student Association President Matt Landau sat down with Pipe Dream yesterday to discuss some of the bigger issues hitting Binghamton University students this semester, ranging from the “no man’s land” professional fraternities are currently in to ID cards and programming space.
— Councils for all classes —
According to Landau, this is the first year that there will be councils for every class year, not just seniors.
Landau, who created the councils last semester, said that he felt the new councils would be a good opportunity to get more students involved in campus government.
“I felt there was no unity for the classes,” Landau said. “But there were no other types of councils [at the time].”
According to Landau, applications for those interested in applying for the freshman class council are currently being accepted by the SA. Officers for the sophomore and junior class councils were selected last semester.
Landau said he hopes the councils will be able to unify the classes more, and help to create different types of programs and events.
“After all of the class councils have been made, we’ll be deciding what will happen,” Landau said.
— Programming space —
This year the SA, like many other student groups, has moved out of the Old University Union and into a new home on the second floor of the New University Union.
According to Landau, the SA has settled nicely into their office in the New Union.
“They redesigned the whole office for us,” Landau said, explaining that he thought the move would be permanent. “Plus it’s nicer than the old one [in the Old Union] — we have ceilings.”
While Landau said he hadn’t heard any complaints about the lack of programming space yet, he did expect it to remain a big issue throughout the reconstruction of the Old Union.
“This is affecting a lot more than just student groups,” Landau said, emphasizing how last week’s Information Fair had to be held in the Events Center.
— Binghamton Sound Stage and Lighting staff rehired over summer —
According to Landau, most of the BSSL staff that had been fired last semester after wage disputes with former SA Vice President for Finance Chris Powell were rehired over the summer.
“At first Alice [Liou, the new VP for finance] upheld Chris’s decision about BSSL,” Landau said. “But then the [SA] e-board met over the summer and decided it wasn’t a decision for just that office.”
“All staff except for the general manager were rehired,” Landau added.
Landau said that a new general manager has already been hired for the new school year. He also said everything in BSSL should remain the same.
— Professional fraternities —
Last semester Vice President for Student Affairs Brian Rose reorganized all fraternities and sororities — including both professional and social — underneath the Off Campus College. They had previously been considered part of the Office of Campus Life.
According to Landau, since that time the professional fraternities have been locked in a “no man’s land,” as they are in the process of becoming a part of the OCC.
“The professional fraternities are no longer recognized by the SA and not yet recognized by BU,” Landau said.
According to Landau, he had to create an ad hoc “professional fraternity committee,” which allows the fraternities to reserve rooms on campus through the SA.
Landau said the process of moving to OCC takes time and that the move should hopefully be completed within the next two months.
— ID card confusion —
Another concern of Landau’s for the new school year is the number of students who hadn’t realized they wouldn’t be getting new IDs this semester, due to what he called lack of any real notification from the Registrar.
“I don’t think they did a good job with telling people [they would not get a new ID],” Landau said. “I met with Terry Kelley-Wallace of the registrar and told her to expect a lot of people looking for IDs.”
Landau said Kelley-Wallace told him she would monitor the number of students asking for replacements.
He added that when he spoke with Kelley-Wallace she said a B-Line had been sent out telling students they would not receive new IDs this semester, but Landau said he was unable to locate the e-mail in his archives.
— SA direction —
According to Landau, who has been spending a lot of time working to resolve funding problems with the Off Campus College Transport (see Page 3 and Friday’s issue of Pipe Dream for full coverage), each office in the SA has been working on their own projects so far.
“I think this year will be much quieter for the SA,” Landau said. “There seem to be no real controversies happening.”